
GUS Musician's Digest       Fri, 22 Oct 93  3:22 MDT     Volume 1: Issue   3  

Today's Topics:
                     GUS Musician's Digest V1 #2
                              keyboards
                            Let's GUSjam!
                                MPU401
                         MPU401-compatibility
                          NetJam replacement
             Patches?  We don't need no stinkin' patches!
                    Power Chords - Music w. Mouse
                                Q & A
                         questions: mod files
                              Re netjam
                           various replies
                         Windows MOD and MIDI

Standard Info:
	- Meta-info about the GUS can be found at the end of the Digest.
	- Before you ask a question, please READ THE FAQ.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 16:07:39 EDT
From: ciabatto@esc.syr.ge.com (David Ciabattoni)
Subject: Re: GUS Musician's Digest V1 #2

Hey all...

This question is for users of PowerChords. I was playing with it a few days ago
and noticed that when editing a rhythm (that is double clicking on the 'chord rhythm' part in the song window) a little dialog box appears, in it , it states
the name of the rhythm, patch name and channel. It always says, "Patch : Piano 1".
How can I change that, or is it just a mistake (there seems to be no way to 
change it in the dialog box) Im hoping (and it seems to sound like it) that
whatever Instrument I have selected in Tuning is the one that is being 
played??? Correct??????

Actally, what Im trying to do is create some basic 12 bar blues in different
keys so I can play the 'solo' on my guitar along with it. Maybe someone has done
something like this??? a demo perhaps of what they did???? or exchange of ideas.???

Any help pleeze..

- dave

-ps I like the digest split.. Cool...

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 16:12:13 +1000
From: David Vu <ccdvu@cc.uq.oz.au>
Subject: keyboards

Adam Boyt <aboyt@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> wrote:

> Does anyone know where to get a basic midi keyboard (maybe with velocity 
> and pitch wheels)

It's probably best to look in the second hand market.  You most probably
can find one at a good price.  Most toy keyboards have MIDI but lack 
velocity/pitch/mod.  You'll definitely have to look for second hand semipro
keyboards.  Other than that, a new 61-key keyboard with velocity, pitch 
bend and modulation wheels will set you back > $750 (Australian).

I was looking for one, months ago like you, and I ended up buying a Kawai
Spectra, which is a basic semi-pro portable keyboard.  No built-in speaker, 
you 'll need an amp; has all of the above, plus some usable instruments for
$600.  This keyboard is for beginners only and does have everything 
I wanted.  

Hope that helps.

-David-

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 11:21:57 MDT
From: Stuart Yoshida <yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com>
Subject: Let's GUSjam!

  I'd be interested in a GUSjam.  I've already started this on a very
  small scale by composing a song on Power Chords and having the drums
  sequenced by a friend with a GUS.  I'll also (hopefully) get a
  keyboard solo from a fellow GUS'er and add that into the final
  product.

  So, yes, I think a GUSjam would be great!

--

  Stuart Yoshida

Internet: yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com
   Voice: (303) 229-2324

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 18:32:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: MPU401

> Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 17:09:52 +0100 (MET)
> From: tgakem@chem.tue.nl
> Subject: MPU401-compatibility
> 
> One I of the reasons I found the GUS an attractive sound card before
> bying it, was the MPU401 compatibility. However, if I try the MPU401
> midi drivers of the Midisoft Recording Session program, it won't work. I
> do get good results using the ultrasound midi port through the windows
> midimapper. Can anybody give me a hint to what is meant by 
> 'MPU401 compatibility' ? Should I use some alternative settings of
> ultrinit, or some other driver?

The MPU401-compatible MIDI interface of the GUS (rev's 3.4 and up) is for
hooking up an external synth or keyboard only.  You cannot control the
GUS' GF1 synth through the MIDI port.  You will need drivers that control
the soundcard at the register level.  The Windows driver will do that 
for you in Windows, so the GUS should behave transparently as just another
MIDI synth (with patch caching) in that environment.  In DOS, things are
not so simple as there is no one universal driver.  However, you can use
Mega-Em to essentially turn the GUS into a MIDI synth with an MPU-401
compatible interface for DOS apps and games.

Phat.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 13:30 MET
From: hst@mh.nl (Klaas Hemstra)
Subject: Re: MPU401-compatibility

Eric Meijer ( tgakem@chem.tue.nl) wrote:
>One I of the reasons I found the GUS an attractive sound card before
>bying it, was the MPU401 compatibility. However, if I try the MPU401
>midi drivers of the Midisoft Recording Session program, it won't work. I
>do get good results using the ultrasound midi port through the windows
>midimapper. Can anybody give me a hint to what is meant by 
>'MPU401 compatibility' ? Should I use some alternative settings of
>ultrinit, or some other driver?

Sorry Eric,

The GUS is NOT MPU401 compatible.
At least not as you expect.
There is a 'dump uart midi mode' which should be equal to the MPU-401
'dump uart midi mode', but even then the i/o adresses must be the same
as the 'standard' MPU401 adresses, the IRQ must be the same etc.

In Dos, you could use MEGAEM to emulate MPU401, but does input work ??
In Windows you should use the Multimedia drivers.

Klaas

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 93 09:15:45 EDT
From: "Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems" <71333.2166@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: NetJam replacement

>> Since NetJam has died, are there any interested GUSers
>> who might want to do something similar?  The
>> standardization of software distributed through Gravis
>> would make it even easier.  We could use .MID files, the
>> GM patch set, and even standardize on Session for the
>> software.

Hey, we'd love to be involved in something like this. I'd like to see what
people can do with Power Chords.

Anyway, I'm in favor of the idea, and would like to support it, even though we
may not participate directly.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 09:27:09 EST
From: "Bryan Cass" <bc%vti.idx.com@sadye.EMBA.UVM.EDU>
Subject: Patches?  We don't need no stinkin' patches!

So, now that I can post this question to the *right* group of people...

Where can I find better acoustic instrument patches for the GUS?  Some of them
are just downright lousy - I'm sure it's possible to get better piano, string,
sax, choir, etc samples.  I've played Kurzweil keyboards that sound so good
they almost make you want to sing!  (Ahem).

Has anyone attempted to create better acoustic patches, or is there an ftp site
I can sift through?

BTW, to ChrisW, I posed the question of whether copying patches was legal a
few weeks ago, and the consensus seemed to be that sounds/patches cannot be
copyrighted, only music (MIDI or otherwise) and/or lyrics.

Thanks,
Bryan

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 93 09:15:37 EDT
From: "Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems" <71333.2166@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Power Chords - Music w. Mouse

>> David Hoang writes
>> Does anyone know of a midi music program for dos or windows that will
>> allow me to compose my own music without having to use a keyboard
>> synthesiser? What I'm trying to say is that if there is a program that
>> would allow me to use my mouse or keyboard(typing one) to compose midi
>> music?

David,

Power Chords which is bundled with the UltraSound is what you are looking for.
It supports patch caching on the GUS and you can compose music using just the
mouse.

Even better is Power Chords Pro which sports an on-screen keyboard and piles of
cut and paste features to make mouse-based composition even easier. You can
upgrade to Pro for $75.00 US

Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 06:34:23 PDT
From: deraud@power.amasd.anatcp.rockwell.com (Robert Lee DeRaud)
Subject: Q & A

In the interests of karma maintenance, the answers will outnumber the 
questions...how GOOD the answers are is another question entirely :-)

>From: Adam Boyt <aboyt@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
>Subject: keyboards

>Does anyone know where to get a basic midi keyboard (maybe with velocity 
>and pitch wheels).  I don't need instruments (GUS will do me fine) on it, 
>just the midi capability.  Also what sort of sizes are there?

It will probably be less expensive to get a used Casio/Yamaha synth of 
some sort than a dedicated keyboard controller, as these tend to be
oriented toward the pro users (i.e. expensive and bulletproof). BTW, 
most of the cheaper synths are 49 or 61 keys (4-5 octave); pricing is 
biased heavily toward features rather than size.

>Lastly, does anyone know of a good score notation program for dos/windows 
>which outputs midi files - it doesn't have to support GUS.
>What range of prices am I looking at?

Encore from Passport (~$300US) or its little brother MusicTime (about 
half that) are OK, but do not support patch caching: a royal PITA. 
The dedicated notation programs (Finale etc) are VERY expensive (>$500).

>From: Steve "Bongos" Larson <larson@ee.ualberta.ca>
>Subject: Kudos to D.Debry & others; Session; showing off; tech-tip

>Okay, who's the resident Session genius??
>I have learned that drum patches are fixed on midi channel 10, but when
>assigning a track to ch. 10, then click the rec button for that track, I get
>no sound from the keyboard (connected via midi in/out). If I start recording,
>then play some keys, notes appear on the staff just fine, but there's no sound.
>When the recording is played, the hard-drive spins for a while, and the sound
>outputs just fine. It looks like the drum patches are loaded to the GUS
>only after a play command is requested.

Yup, that's what it's doing. Remember, each NOTE on channel 10 is a 
separate patch: until it knows what notes the track contains, it's 
clueless. And loading all the drum patches ahead of time is a loser as 
well, as they take up >900K!

>Say, if any of you are gonna show off your GUS with
>the aid of a killer sound system, I recommend a line-level ground loop
>isolator between the GUS and your amp.

Payback time: what's the Radio Shuck part number for this widget? I'm 
totally clueless about this analog stuff and the twits at the store are 
even worse.

>From: David Hoang <dhoang@eis.calstate.edu>
>Subject: Music composer for keyboard

>Does anyone know of a midi music program for dos or windows that will
>allow me to compose my own music without having to use a keyboard
>synthesiser?

Basically, any sequencer with notation capability will work, maybe with 
a little help from Patch Manager if it doesn't understand patch caching. 
'Best of Breed' currently appears to be Cakewalk Pro for Windows (v2.0).

>From: chrisw <chrisw@leland.Stanford.EDU>
>Subject: Music FAQ ?

>In particular, will I get dragged off and put in jail 
>if I go down to my local music store, hire a drum machine for the day,
>sample all its sounds to my GUS, and then post them publically on epas?

Dunno about legality, strictly speaking, but I doubt anyone would care 
about this scenario as long as you don't a) charge money for it or b) 
upload commercial samples in a format the originator markets (i.e. for 
the same or another drum machine); and of course, there is the question 
of how the hell they would find out...
Of course, if you use the GUS to sample it (i.e. 8-bit samples), I'm not 
sure I'll bother downloading them :-). I want my 16-bit daughterboard 
NOW!

***********************************************************************
Lee DeRaud                             Will program Windows for food.
Rockwell Int. AESD                   (Hey, I'm easy but I'm not cheap!)
   DoD #985 - Fast and ugly beats slow and cute any day of the week.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
      My own opinions only, not those of Rockwell International.
       (There's nothing wrong with this job that can't be cured
            with a postal worker's uniform and an Uzi.)
***********************************************************************
 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 18:46:13 -0500 (CDT)
From: Antonio Guia <guia@CC.UManitoba.CA>
Subject: questions: mod files

> I am actively working on a GUS midi faq.  If anyone would like to help
> ) known problems and workarounds
> 	playing .wav files at the same time as midis

it would be good to get a list of ftp sites for wav/mod/midi files in
there....   anyways, the question of the day:

i noticed that a particular mod player for windows uses the ultrasynth to
play its music, meaning that any wav files (system sounds for example)
will not play while the mod file is playing, however i can play a midi
file at the same time (kinda fun the effects you can achieve especially
with the mixer..)   but occasionally when i do this i get the modplayer
crashing....   to my understanding the midi files are played through a
different driver, therefore there should not be such problems..   what is
going on?   (i can't remember the name of the mod player, i just picked it
up recently, winmod??..  it has german menus)

> Wow!  I just subscribed to the Gus-Music newsletter this morning,
> and 5 minutes later, it arrives!  Now, that's fast!

5 whole minutes?   hmmm..  kinda slow...

> Is anybody home? Gee, it sure is quiet...no questions about SBOS 
> settings for Dork of Foobar, no bitching about lockups playing obscure 
> MOD formats under some obscure desktop shell on some obscure piece-of-
> shit clone, no appeals to send email to some poor bugger at some obscure 
> game company who's probably busier than *I* am...just MUSIC!

yeah...  it is rather quiet in that sence...  in fact yours seems to be
the only case of a complaint in the form of sarcasm

> Subject: subscribe

ha!  and to think that most of these people likely have a higher
education...   it's always quite humorous to see these ones...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 12:11:23 -0400
From: jericho!gord (Gord Wait S-MOS Systems Vancouver Design Center)
Subject: Re netjam

The idea sounds OK.. My comment is on Session: How does anyone get it to
run properly? The first (and last) time I tried it out, I imported a
midifile in, did one cut and paste, and it totally mangled the results.
IE I selected a few bars of notes, cut them out, then pasted them
in a different section. The results were all kinds of spurious notes
at the start and end points of the cut. I saved the mangle out and looked
at what was there using the event list window in winjammer, and found that
at the start and end points of the cut, there were multiple repeated notes
with 0 duration, plus all kinds of extra garbage notes throughout the
entire file (put there by session, not me..)
Am I the only one who is having extreme problems with Session? Perhaps
I should try to reinstall it...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 19:46:45 EDT
From: dmcintyr@muselab.ac.runet.edu
Subject: various replies

|Even if it's just a bit of private e-mail, a GUS-based
|jam session could turn into everything that NetJam was 
|supposed to be.

What was NetJam?  If you're proposing something like I think you are from
the general tone of that message, then I think it would be pretty
interesting to hear the results at any rate...  Although I couldn't be
much of a contributor since I'm a lousy musician.

=========

|Does anyone know where to get a basic midi keyboard (maybe with velocity 
|and pitch wheels).  I don't need instruments (GUS will do me fine) on it, 
|just the midi capability.  Also what sort of sizes are there?  I would 
|love an 88 key keyboard but tat going to be a tad expensive - what sort 

You won't find a MIDI keyboard that's just a controller, I don't think. 
If you could find one it would probably be more expensive than an
inexpensive MIDI keyboard with lousy instruments, because it would be so
specialized.

88-keys is out of the question.  I think 60 is the biggest you can get
without paying a smal fortune.  I would recommend getting a cheap consumer
keyboard from Casio or Yamaha from a popular department store that has the
features you want as far as MIDI capabilities, controllers, etc.  You
should be able to pick up a cheap for around $250-$300 (US) that has weighted
keys, key velocity, pitch and perhaps modulation controllers, and maybe
some other stuff.

======
|Does anyone know of a midi music program for dos or windows that will
|allow me to compose my own music without having to use a keyboard
|synthesiser? What I'm trying to say is that if there is a program that

I don't know about convenience, but you can enter music manually with
Cakewalk for Windows in staff view or piano roll mode.  I think you can
also step record with WinJammer which is a shareware package that's
readily available.

=====

|I think I'm going to like it here...

--Michael-- << dmcintyr@muselab.ac.runet.edu >>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 14:28:54 -0400
From: Stubbs David Douglas <a148stub@cdf.toronto.edu>
Subject: Windows MOD and MIDI

Hello y'all!

Just wondering if there is any MOD player in 
Windows that will play MODs in stereo like 
the good ol' DOS ultramod does.  Also, what[D
is the best DOS mod player?  

Somedimes I try to play certain MIDI files through the Windows
gus driver and certain tracks don't come through.  They come
through beautifully on the DOS playmidi program, and using the
Patch Manager I can see that the patches needed for those 
missing tracks aren't even loaded in gus ram.  I have 1MEG on
the board an in this specific case there is still over 800K
free.  I think I am using the Windows driver v1.1  Can anyone
goive me some help?  Thanks in advance...  

BTW, what are the latest versions of playmidi, Windows driver, 
SBOS, etc?  

Also, to whoever was suggesting a gusjam:  Love it, love it love it!
As soon as I can get my hands on a good keyboard, I'd love to join in!

Also, to the great minds who created this separate music digest - way
to go!  This is great!

Dave...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 11:47:04 PST
From: dnichol@prostar.com (Dnichol)

subscribe


Please subscribe me to the musicians digest
---
 ~ SLMR 2.0 ~

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 09:17:48 -0500
From: montgome@afoms.brooks.af.mil (Capt Noel D. Montgomery)

--------- The following is a converted OFFICEPOWER mail message ----------

                                                                              
       To:  gus-music@dsd.es.com                                              
                                                                              
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  Subject:                                   New [*]       Codes:  [        ] 
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     From:  Capt Noel D. Montgom   By:  montgome@afoms         Attachment [*] 

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          > Steve "Bongos" Larson <larson@ee.ualberta.ca>
          says:
          >Okay, who's the resident Session genius??
          >I have learned that drum patches are fixed on midi channel 10, but when
          >assigning a track to ch. 10, then click the rec button for that track, I get
          >no sound from the keyboard (connected via midi in/out). If I start recording,
          >then play some keys, notes appear on the staff just fine, but there's no 
          >sound.
          >When the recording is played, the hard-drive spins for a while, and the sound
          >outputs just fine. It looks like the drum patches are loaded to the GUS
          >only after a play command is requested. Why don't they load when ch=10
          >and say, prog0 is selected for the particular track?!? (Am I missing
          >something here?) ==> consulted the help docs and found nothing useful...
          >Any help here would be appreciated.
          
          Yes!  At first I thought this was just a matter of my cheap little keyboard 
          sending the wrong controls, but I found that Session doesn't cache the patches 
          until it actually plays back a recording.  Then it only loads the patches that 
          are required to play what was recorded!!!  If I want to use my keyboard to 
          enter drum tracks and hear what I am playing, I have to record every note that 
          I want to use, then play it back, then erase the contents of the track.  That 
          is very irritating!  Can anything be done about this?

------------------------------

End of GUS Musician's Digest V1 #3
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